Sleepless
by Fuwakateema
Summary: He won’t read the obituary page. Or maybe he will read it. Hers will be there, or should be, since he placed it on the day before.


Title: Sleepless (1/1)  
  
Author: Jess (fauquita@hotmail.com)  
  
Category: Post-admin, CJ/Toby  
  
Rating: Pretty much G  
  
Summary: He won't read the obituary page. Or maybe he will read it. Hers will be there, or should be, since he placed it on the day before.  
  
Note: Obviously a few years down the line...and the whole pregnant Andi thing? Not in my universe. Also, based on the short story "Sleep".  
  
Thanks: Sida "gotta spank a baby" licious. Who luvs ya?  
  
  
  
Several people wanted to see him to the car following the burial, but he said, "No, I'd like to walk by myself, I don't know why." CJ would've asked if that was all right, would've made sure everyone had a ride back, would've thanked them for coming. But he was thinking of sleep, even then, during the short walk from the freshly dug grave to her mustang. How in maybe an hour, or three, he'll be in bed, under or on top of the covers, his cell phone powered off, blinds drawn. Moments after she died, or maybe the second after, but anyway, almost the first thing he thought once he realized she was gone forever was "Maybe I can get some sleep now." Or was it "Now I can sleep better"?  
  
He thinks of his procedure for the day, and for every day after that. He'll go home-her home, really, but his now-park in the garage, pick up the newspaper from the front step, take off his shoes and tie, pour a large glass of scotch, or maybe drink it straight from the bottle because somehow it seems appropriate, sit in the large recliner in the living room with the paper and read it while drinking, not let himself fall to pieces. He won't read the obituary page. Or maybe he will read it. Hers will be there, or should be, since he placed it on the day before.  
  
"Hello," he said on the phone almost the minute he got home from the hospital; "I'd like to place an obituary for CJ Cregg, well, Claudia Jean, but she always hated that name, so maybe we should just stick with CJ. Would you like me to spell it?" "Eventually, yes," the man answered, "but first let me have yours and how we should bill it." He found it surprisingly easy to talk to the disembodied voice of a stranger, about how CJ wasn't his wife, how she'd called him in India four months ago to tell him she was ill, how there was no place for him in the 'survived by' section because he wasn't family, probably wasn't even a loved one anymore. He thinks he should be able to write a flowery passage, something she would've liked, but in the end he says, "I'd like to keep it short, just the essentials." He can tell from his tone of voice that the man on the other end of the phone believes this is to save money and Toby has run out of strength to explain himself.  
  
When she died, in his arms, in the hospital bed, she was already dead. What he means is, he stood in the doorway of her room and noticed the whiteness of her unmoving features, the absolute stillness of her chest, and when he gathered her in his arms and felt her cold forehead against his lips he knew she was gone. He didn't think, "God, no, CJ, don't leave me." He thought, "Maybe I can get some sleep now." Or was it, "I can sleep better now"? Both sound right, but he only thought one of them, and now he can't remember which it was. And he thinks, it wasn't a cold remark, was it? A self-centered, thoughtless, callous one, was it? He could say he was in shock, but he wasn't, not really, and who would he tell anyway?  
  
  
  
Now he's home, sitting in the living room on the couch. Not in the recliner after all because it still smells like her, and he thinks he'll have to get upholstery cleaner, or maybe he'll just burn it. He didn't get the paper, no, he got the paper; it was the mail he didn't get. He can't bear her name on the phone bill right now. So, he settles on the couch with scotch in one hand and the Times in the other. It was only yesterday, he knows it was only yesterday, and it wasn't a mean thought, a selfish one, was it? And he knows that if he knows anything he wasn't in shock.  
  
He'd taken care of her for months, so he'd been prepared. Well as prepared as one can be given the situation, meaning that even up until the last minute and despite every preparation for or against, one doesn't know. He took care of her for three months, at home, in the hospital, mostly at home, but during the last month more time in the hospital. Always by her side at home, and sometimes, most times, in a bed beside hers in the starched white room of the hospital.   
  
He could've moved to another room at home since there were three, plus a study that could've been converted into another room. But he continued to sleep with her because there was always this fear that she would call for him, and he wouldn't be able to hear her voice, soft now with pain, from the guest room. She made such noises when she slept though, and he would lie awake breathing shallowly beside her and trying not to move because he didn't want to disturb her. But some mornings, grouchy from fear and lack of sleep, he would tease her until something was thrown at his head.  
  
"You can always go sleep in one of the other rooms if I'm such a burden. Come to think of it, you could always go sleep in another state. Nobody's making you stay here."  
  
Tonight he'll sleep, though. He hasn't slept much in the past two weeks, but tonight he thinks he will because he's exhausted, and now there's nothing stopping him. Three nights ago she was up all night, wheezing, coughing, writhing in pain. He took her to the hospital the following morning and slept in a visitor's chair the next night. But it wasn't really sleep because the chair was uncomfortable, and cold, and he was worried.  
  
  
  
"Do you want to mention surviving family members?" the newspaper obituary person asked. "Grandparents, children, siblings?"   
  
"No surviving parents, no children. There's her brother Peter, and his daughter Hogan...and that's it."   
  
Josh and Sam wanted to go home with him, and Adam, her eldest brother. He forgot to put him in the obituary, but he's sure the other man won't mind, if he even sees it since he should be on a flight back to Napa right now. He said no to all of them, he wanted to be alone today. He'll sleep, have a drink, have the drink first, or maybe five, and then sleep.  
  
He gulps the scotch and opens the obituary section because curiosity has gotten the better of him, and he thinks he'll be able to sleep finally if he just looks at her name in print-hard, final, black letters. And then cutting it out. Maybe he'll cut it out without reading it because if he doesn't cut it out right now, he might forget, and the paper will go into the recycling bin, and he won't be able to look at it later. But then he must find a place to keep it. Maybe in the plain wooden box on the mantel where she keeps her grandmother's rosary and lock of blonde hair from someone he has never met and a faded newspaper clipping from Bartlet's inauguration. In the end, he rips it out, folding the jagged edges together and places it on the coffee table.  
  
One tumbler, then another, and now he's starting to feel drowsy because, hell, it's been a tough four months, and he can't remember the last full night's rest he's had. It hasn't hit him yet, he knows, because all he can think of is how soft the mattress will be, how dark he can make the room in the middle of the day, how long he'll be able to just close his eyes and dream.  
  
An hour later, and he's under the covers. Hogan had the presence of mind to wash the sheets, or maybe it was Peter, but anyway, the bed smells like Tide and not CJ, and he almost weeps in relief. He turns fitfully, tosses all the pillows on the floor, then the comforter. He groans in frustration because nothing, not exhaustion, not alcohol, and not the sleeping pills he dangerously swallowed thirty minutes ago, will allow him to escape.  
  
He swallows air in great big gulps because the weight of loss is suddenly there, pressing upon his chest. And then he realizes that he isn't breathing so much as sobbing, great, gut-wrenching sobs that echo in the empty room and probably into the hallway. And when sleep finally does come, it is only grudgingly and she is there, right behind his eyes, reminding him of all he has lost. 


End file.
